The Lincoln Christian Crusaders girls’ basketball team attended the first-ever Lincoln Area Media Day at Anderson Hall. The Crusaders are coming off a bounce-back season that saw them as the 7 seed in the C1 state tournament.
Head coach Scott Klein enters his second season with the Crusaders and brought the three leaders of the team, Annie Hueser, Kena Ailes, and Mattea Kassebaum to talk about the season ahead.
“We’ve got a good group coming back,” Klein said, “We’re building relationships. We want everyone to feel valued in this program.”
The Crusaders have four of their starting five returning with Hueser, Ailes, and Kassebaum being three of those four. Coach Klein spoke very highly of the improvement he’s seen from these three in the offseason.
“These three have put the time in the gym over the summer and put up thousands of shots,” Klein said, “I can see it in open gyms, we’ve started open gyms, and we’re just excited to get going with them and start to reach our goals.”
The Crusaders were handed a tougher schedule this year with some Class B opponents they will have to face later in the year and their jamboree will be against Pius X. Kassebaum said how she thinks this team will prepare for the tougher schedule.
“Just going one game at a time,” Kassebaum said, “Making sure don’t get too big on it and then also just focusing on what we can control in practice.”
Kena Ailes noted how she thinks the games against Class B schools and Pius X will help them be more prepared and become a better team as the season continues.
The Crusaders want to make a state championship run once again and improve on their 22-4 record from last season.
Their season starts against Ashland-Greenwood on Nov. 30.
